THE TWO MAINS: Starting and Change
I have contemplated a lot about what to write for my first chapter of becoming. And by a lot I mean four months. It took me so long to realize that if we knew how to start perfect, we would already have finished everything before we ever had the chance to truly start. The point of beginning is that you step into the unknown, that you do it despite the fear, despite the thrilling feeling of excitement that you feel with a heart beating because of the anxiety.
So, here I am, starting. I have zero idea how this going to go, but I promise to be as real as I can even if most of the times, I feel like I am a fraud, a hypocrite, who fails to follow her own advice she gives to other people. Let’s talk about that. Do you feel so? Why can’t you follow your own great advice that you give to other people? You listen to others, and you react to others, and it’s graceful, but when it is an essential time to be in your own body, to live your own life, you freeze. Do you know what it’s called? Would you call it disassociation from reality? It is intense, isn’t it? If I had to describe it, I would describe it as floating on your back in the water, there’s somewhere you want to reach, but you assume if you move, or start swimming, there are sharks coming for you, crocodiles are on your ass as soon as you so much as so twitch. So, you stay there you know, the sharks moving, and the crocodiles watching, the world turning around you. Like your reality, you stay in the same position. You want to move. You want to swim. You hope for a way to fly straight to it, but you’re not a bird, at least not yet? (#anythingispossible). However, the accuracy that you keep wanting to know about how thing will be when you start is not accurate, and never will be because you never know until you do it. If there is one constant, it is change, and change is unpredictable. Most of the times, people don’t see it coming, and before they know it, it’s turned their life upside down. And then they have to create something from that upside down. It’s a perspective shift, and an identity shift. Change is what makes us empathic by learning from our experience. It’s interesting, but it’s also BAT-SHIT-CRAZY-SCARY. There are times you know the change is coming. But how soon? And how late? You don’t know. So how do you make sense of it, and we want to make sense of it because we are meaning making machines; we want to lay still, meditate, or even be bored, or relax, because we find purpose in those things as well as we do in achieving something crazy.
I wish I had a simple answer for how to make sense of change. But it’s not simple. We can try to codify our existence, but there are too many variables, too many conditions, and situations, too many changes, and everything is different with each person. Someone with a normal childhood can become a murderer, and someone from an abusive childhood can become an amazing parent. It can go both ways. It can even go on a third way which you would not have known existed. The cold hard truth is that yes, it is too complicated. But, also, it’s interesting, it’s how we learn, show empathy, try to be on the more understandable side of history, find a purpose, etc.
While, it is not a simple answer, there is an answer. And no, the answer’s not that it’s too complicated like most breakups are, although we have already established that. The answer is beautiful, but some of you might see it through a different lens, and that’s also amazing because if we all saw things the same way, what a boring way to live; there would be no learning.
Change is something that kills stagnancy, if you want a find an answer you will have to look in your own experiences and go deep. In my experience, let me tell you, dear starry-eyes reader, it’s something that keeps me moving, keep my purpose same, and different at the same time, there are phases to my change. Every day can be different, only if we let it be. But sometimes, even if you cross countries, change never begins until you start to let go of old identities. Until you feel the need to rip of the bandages to see the wounds that left scars, and heal internally. It’s beautiful, it’s scary, it’s transforming and it takes time for me. Does it for you, tell me, reader, do you feel the same way like you’re hanging by the last thread when your physical surroundings have changed but you still feel the same. And you scream, “where’s the change I had hoped for?” Not knowing it is, in fact, sometimes yourself that changes you, conscious choice that’s significant for any purpose that changes you, but you have to let go of the thread, and be the fool, and step into the unknown.
Welcome to chapters of becoming, here I try to rip off a really rusty, dusty, old bandage, and heal together with you. Oh my god. Is this what a cult is? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. But welcome, your stay here is your choice, you have your freedom, and you have the power of interpretation and to experience things beautifully, differently, or even similarly. It doesn’t matter. The mind-blowing thing is, change is what it is, but you are a miracle, and I’ll be here to remind you.
Love,
Pakhi/Soni
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